Background
Established in 1898, St. Norbert enrolls about 2,200 students each year. Its 108-acre campus borders the Fox River, and consists of more than 1.39 million square feet of building space. St. Norbert College consistently ranks as one of the top five comprehensive colleges in the Midwest, and is a top-ranked Catholic liberal arts college.
Customer Needs
In the 1980s, St. Norbert College developed a relationship with A&A Fire and Security (later acquired by CEC). The facilities department wanted to simplify how it did business – instead of dealing with multiple vendors for life safety solutions, St. Norbert College wanted a solid relationship with a reliable vendor. Disappointed in the service they were receiving from other vendors, the facilities team decided to work exclusively with CEC to streamline life safety services, develop testing and inspection processes, and improve response time. “And I wanted to sleep at night!” says Lew Pullen, St. Norbert College’s manager of mechanical systems.
Solution
Prior to St. Norbert College’s partnership with CEC, there were several fire alarms that had never been tested before. After partnering with CEC, St. Norbert College now has:
- An annual test/inspect program that involves every facility and device.
- Monthly testing procedures for the facilities staff to follow each month, which were created by CEC.
- A process for identifying and fixing possible system failures.
- One resource for all life safety testing, service, and maintenance instead of juggling different vendors and services.
- A solid plan to move from campus-wide, disparate systems to implementation of the same type of alarm system across every building on campus.
- More confidence among campus safety staff and students in knowing how to deal with fire alarm system situations.
- Access to an online system that logs the results of every test and inspection, along with comprehensive data on every device.
I have come to greatly respect CEC’s staff. Everyone is so knowledgeable and has been so helpful. I smile every time I call their office; the people answering actually know me. With CEC, we feel much more confident that we are in great shape. We have only one emergency number we need to call for help. Together, we solved the problems with our life safety systems on campus.
